this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2025
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Recommendations for after installing Linux (Mint) coming from Windows for best practices for a casual user ? (kbin.earth)
submitted 1 day ago by veggay@kbin.earth to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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I finally bit the bullet and I'm giving Linux a second try, installed with dual boot a few days ago and making Linux Mint my default from now on.

There are a lot of guides and tips about the before and during the transition but not for after, so I was hoping to find some here.

Some example questions but I would like to hear any other things that come to mind:

I read that with Mint if you have a decent computer you don't need to do a swap partition? So I skipped that, but I'm not sure if I'd want to modify that swap file to make it bigger, is that just for giving extra ram if my hardware one is full? Because I have 48GB of ram and if I look into my System Monitor it says Swap is not available.

Was looking at this other post, and the article shared (about Linux security) seems so daunting, it's a lot. How much of it do I have to learn as a casual user that's not interested in meddling with the system much? Is the default firewall good enough to protect me from my own self to at least some degree? I was fine with just Windows Defender and not being too stupid about what I download and what links I click.

I was also reading about how where you install your programs or save your data matters, like in particular partitions or folders, is that just like hardcore min-maxing that's unnecessary for the average user that doesn't care to wait half a second extra or is it actually relevant? I'm just putting stuff in my Home folder.

Connected to the last two points: in that Linux Hardening Guide lemmy post I shared the TL;DR includes "Move as much activity outside the core maximum privilege OS as possible"... how do I do that? is that why people have separate partitions?

Downloaded the App Center (Snap Store) and I was surprised there was even a file saying to not allow it... why is that? Is it not recommended? Is it better to download stuff directly from their websites instead?

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[–] veggay@kbin.earth 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

oh... I hadn't heard about any of those, thank you! Installing Flathub

Why would Flathub not be included with Mint? And how did you find it was in those three places? Did you look for it manually on each or is there a place that tells you where it's distributed? Because on their website the only thing I found was the Download link that takes you to itch.io or their github page that doesn't give any linux alternatives

edit: reviews in flathub say that there are some features that don't work and it's better to download from their itch.io page haha - it's not the first review I see saying that about flatpaks, so there are valid reasons to just download them manually like one would in windows anyway

[–] MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Flathub and the AUR are by far the most comprehensive, and flatpaks works on a lot of distros. So I checked those.

They've also been getting their kinks worked out over the last few years and work much better than they used to.

That review you found is two years old and was for version 1.1. Current version is 1.4. Try it out today, if it's been fixed leave another review letting people know. It seems to work just fine for me.